TripTych Service Solutions Changing Mindsets

Leveraging the power of technology, TTS forensically analyses an oil and gas company’s supply chain and procurement processes and then finds ways to drive down costs throughout, at a time when cost-efficiency is the need of the hour.

One Canadian company says it is now changing mindsets in an industry where spending is under unprecedented scrutiny, revolutionizing strategic sourcing processes to deliver what it claims are average savings of 20 percent in procurement and supply chain management through technology.

The primary effects of the oil market downturn on the industry are well documented. Faced with plunging revenues, operators are canceling projects and slashing workforces, while suppliers also face the full force of the cutbacks.

Yet old habits sometimes die hard, and some oil and gas companies continue to pay over the odds for products and services, a legacy of procurement contracts signed when companies riding the wave of high oil prices were cash-rich, and suppliers were able to command exaggerated fees.

We’re connecting the dots,” says Bradley W Nordal, the chairman, and CEO of TripTych Service Solutions (TTS), a procurement and strategic sourcing firm headquartered in Canada, with strategic partners throughout the globe and a growing international business list.

“The oil and gas industry was suffering. I had a personal desire to show companies that there was an alternative strategy to optimize spending, improve operational performance and competitive positioning without dismantling their structures and firing staff,” he explains of the decision to set up TTS in 2014.

“Our approach isn’t to the detriment of suppliers, though. Faced with project cancellations, they found business was drying up, and the market was becoming saturated. There were no longer five or six companies dominating the supply chain.

All of a sudden competition returned to the market, and multiple small companies were able to have access and opportunity again. My model is also to work with them to sell to customers at a price that is fair to all parties in light of the current environment.”

Leveraging the power of technology, TTS forensically analyses an oil and gas company’s supply chain and procurement processes and then finds ways to drive down costs throughout. The industry downturn has played into its hands over the last two and a half years, and TTS is already a trusted partner to clients including Tier 1 EPCM contractors, major oil companies and more than 30 Fortune 1000 companies in total. Nordal says his company is saving these organizations hundreds of millions of dollars a year as a go-between and everybody is benefiting, not just the clients but the consumers, the employees, and the suppliers.

“We are in essence a regulator, the middle man protecting the interests of oil and gas clients by ensuring that they are not being swindled by overpricing, all while leveraging our relationships with these companies to ensure that capable, strategically-sourced suppliers can find a ready market for their products and services. It’s a win-win situation for all,” says Nordal who, having recently worked in the oil and gas industry of a large Qatari government venture gas company for six years prior to 2014 and then becoming the operations manager of a supplier company to that company, has intimate knowledge of supply chain dynamics.

“We found that the most frequent request (from oil and gas companies) when we set up TTS was for a solution to track assets, materials, and people on a work site,” he explains.

In response, TTS entered into partnership with New York technology company iVEDiX to create a data visualization dashboard which could combine all of TTS’s cost optimization methodologies, while including e-procurement and bid analytics, supplier management scorecarding, and real-time safety statistics and tracking on just one visualization frame for the end-user.

The CEO of a major organization could be sitting at his desk in London and be able to see his entire business across the globe, while being instantly updated to abnormalities, safety notifications, project delays or financial accountability. Via his Ipad or mobile, he could dig down into the app to visualize real time the exact region, location and plant level alert and have instantaneous feedback.

“The ability to suddenly visualize your entire business and see your issues in real time is invaluable,” Nordal emphasizes. “This technology is transforming many industries by offering real-time visibility into inventory and product movement, helping to improve productivity, safety and prevent losses and automate timekeeping,” he adds.

Nordal’s father Oliver W Nordal is the CFO of TTS and spent 18 years in Qatar as an Audit/Finance Executive for a major Qatari Oil and Gas Company and shares his wealth of experience to add a secondary dimension of fiscal responsibility to the business by essentially auditing each proposal to ensure cost optimization is achievable.

The technology development work undertaken by TTS was supported by an international oil major and one of the top five companies in the world, and scaled out with the partnerships of two global EPCM companies, says Nordal.

“The oil and gas major provided thought leadership throughout the whole process and, recognizing the potential of the solution to generate significant cost savings for themselves, hired us to implement the created dashboard and visualization solution to monitor hundreds of their sites across the world. We are already saving them millions of dollars as a result.”

In devising a cost savings solution for procurement, TTS consultants will typically undertake an expenditure analysis – which is a comprehensive benchmarking of an organisation’s total expenditures to determine if purchasing power is properly leveraged – as well as a high-level review of a company’s procurement operations to determine savings potential and priorities, known as a rapid opportunity assessment. Companies’ current procurement procedures are adopted by TTS, and a global search is undertaken to ensure best prices and suppliers are sourced directly. Items which are generally difficult to procure or are time sensitive are TTS’s specialty and include direct to door delivery.

TTS can, therefore, for example, manage the entire competitive bidding and sourcing process via e-procurement, with myriad benefits including accelerated re-engineering; the freeing up of resources; reduced operating costs and greater control; and the creation of a single, predictable operating budget line item which may have previously been difficult to predict.

“We have the cross-industry experience to find procurement savings opportunities hidden within your organization and implement supply management solutions that produce results that flow straight to the bottom line.”

TTS’s services extend to construction management, healthcare, education, which focuses on operational excellence and the provision of safe, on-time delivery of every project and size, from pre-Feed studies to start-up and operation through D&D.

TripTych’s Trading House services are one of its most successful offerings to the industry providing a procurement channel where a third party is utilized to purchase low risk, low value (<$100K) goods and services from many different small suppliers, a fully transparent approach to procurement at a highly competitive cost. TTS essentially replaces the traditional procurement department of a company allowing for increased savings on manpower while leveraging its relationships of Tier 1 oil and gas and EPCM to benefit smaller organizations as if they were themselves that top-flight client.

“We’re part of a paradigm shift in the industry in an era of increasing cost consciousness,” says Nordal. “We are a profitable solution during a downturn, and we have already saved companies hundreds of millions of dollars while enabling capable suppliers of all sizes around the world to make money.

“Just as the three major IOCs and a myriad of smaller oil and gas companies are already doing, Middle East oil and gas companies could benefit from TTS’s unrivaled expertise and global relationships to optimize their costs during, and beyond, this challenging market situation.”

Nordal’s philosophy and message to the oil and gas industry are simple: “You don’t know what you don’t know, let us help your organization to bring about change during this cost-conscious business economy while guaranteeing profitability through proper supply chain management via our technology and BI expertise.

“If and only if we save you money can we responsibly accept your money, engage in honest and transparent business practices and show you how procurement engineering works and return success and wealth to such a deflated industry.”